riverman wrote:

Well, there you go thinking again. We've warned you about that. :-)

Exactly like what happens when you try to translate from one language
to another. Maybe "petit amie" translates exactly to "little friend" in
english, but any french-speaker know that it really means the equivalent
of 'girlfriend'. I say "the equavalent" because that is an English
translation of a French word. The actual word, to any Frenchman, is "petit
amie".

Oh my, now you're getting on a slippery slope: with all the languages
being spoken by the posters on paddling forums, even those who share a
common language (i.e. English) can get confused by the use of that
language by other native speakers.

I remember an incident where a British paddler told a U.S. paddler who
just had a bad experience to get ****ed. The U.S. paddler took that as
to get mad, even though the advise of the first person was to get
completely drunk...

Saying "a rapid is Class III" means exactly the same thing to a canoeist, a
doryman, a kayaker, a paddleboater and a swimmer; the rapid is Class III.
How they translate that to a flatlander varies according to the boatman,
the craft, etc. The problem is that we keep trying to translate river
rating systems, even to other boatmen, when we really need to just learn to
think in them.

When I first started paddling with open boaters in the U.S., I
recognised their ratings of rapids. What baffled me was that their lines
seemed to be so much different than mine! If I rate a rapid, I take a
"virtual" line through a rapid in a kayak and I do so in the assumption
that it's the easiest route down. It's often possible to run harder
lines in that same rapid, but that's not all that interesting for rating
it, IMO.

Now here come these open boaters who run something unknown to me,
leading. I follow them blindly, faithfully, and get hammered in some holes!

A good lesson from those trips is to pick my own line, but taking their
remarks about possible dangers at heart! :-)
The best open boater's line through a rapid isn't always the best
kayaker's line.

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/